Suddenly, there are more and more records selling 10,000 to 500,000 copies each year, and less and less selling 1 million to 10 million. To put it simply, the patterns that used to govern sales no longer work. The industry’s biggest successes are now small ones.
Industry insiders are just as confused by the good news as they are by the bad. Here are the kinds of questions they’ve been asking themselves: Why doesn’t Eminem break out on the order of the Beatles and sell 10 million copies of every release? Why can’t Britney, Whitney, Madonna and Mariah make hits like they used to? Why can’t the Strokes break through to the mainstream, stymied at 500,000 units shifted? Conversely, they wonder how a one-off Sub Pop release like the Postal Service’s Give Up — a mash-up of the niche genres of bedroom electronica and emo-punk — has sold well over 250,000 copies. How could Matador sell a half-million copies of the debut by an unheralded New York band like Interpol? Why are bands like Modest Mouse, the Shins, the Yeah Yeah Yeahs and Wilco selling hundreds of thousands of records, where a few years ago they would have — optimistically — sold 50 thousand?
Interesting look at how the music business has changed, how we’re seeing more music by more artists, and the resulting decline of the mega-stars: it’s worth reading.